


And In Short, I Was Afraid

by featherxquill



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24000265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherxquill/pseuds/featherxquill
Summary: Rufus Scrimgeour hates the freedom of the press.
Relationships: Rufus Scrimgeour/Rita Skeeter
Kudos: 4





	And In Short, I Was Afraid

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ in 2007.

Rufus Scrimgeour _hates_ the freedom of the press. Hates it. And he hates Rita Skeeter especially. She’s the Prophet’s star reporter now, having taken a year off in pursuit of ‘the truth’ and published the article that showed the Ministry up as fools.

The article that pushed Fudge under the looking glass and made Rufus’ promotion possible. 

The article that made Potter a hero again, and whose writer later dubbed him ‘The Chosen One’ - that stupid boy who still wouldn’t lend the Ministry his support.

The writer who waltzes into the Ministry like she owns the place and refuses to leave, who forces him to slink out the back way just to avoid her. 

The woman who wears suits just a little too tight, who leans forward just a little too far, who crosses her legs so her skirt hitches just a little too high, and makes his collar suddenly suffocate him.

(The girl who, when he was in seventh year, let him take her to Hogsmeade for a drink but laughed when he tried to kiss her behind the greenhouse.)

The woman who is sitting across from him now in clinging purple dragonskin, watching him over her glasses and twirling that nasty green quill in her hand.

He hates everything about Rita Skeeter.

She sucks on the end of her quill and sets it to hover over her notebook. Leans back in her seat, lifting the cup of tea he offered her out of politeness and regarding him over the rim. Crosses one leg over the other. He feels his left eye twitch. 

The quill moves lazily over the page, and he can just make out the words from where he is sitting: _The Minister of Magic is a powerful man, both in title and in stature, but he seems full of nervous energy as he sits across from me in his London office._

Powerful. The word mocks him. He watches her sip her tea and dangle her shoe off stockinged toes. He remembers what happened after he tried to kiss her, after she laughed at him; the way her eyes mocked as she curled a leg about him and pulled him forward, younger than him but oh-so hardened by her six years in Slytherin, smirking as his cock pressed into her hip and he jerked against her involuntarily. She’d laughed again, five minutes later, after he’d rutted against her and made a mess of his trousers. She was a small woman, and he’d been stronger and broader and more _powerful_ even then, and he’d wanted to break her, to smash her in the face, but that would have made him a monster.

That was how he felt now. Bound. He’d pushed and pushed and pushed and achieved the highest position possible in the political system. He had more power than ever, yet he couldn’t sign a bloody broomstick regulation law without a meeting.

“Shall we begin?” she asks, laying her teacup down again, arms stretching forward so her breasts press against each other and he can see right down the V of her jacket.

He says nothing for a moment; then: “Why did you laugh?”

She sits back again, lips quirking into the barest hint of a smile. Superior, condescending.

“Because you were hilarious.”

Rufus Scrimgeour hates the freedom of the press.


End file.
